Monsters in the classroom

What’s the best way to teach something horrible?

History, Biology especially, poverty and the third world in Geography: there are monsters in our classrooms that we need to show children, but how do you break it to them? Do you simply remove the mask all at once? Do you rip the band aid from the knee with speed and force, a painful explosion of realisation as the youngster looks into the face of depravation or depravity? Or do you instead drop clues and notes, breadcrumbs to find their way to the truth of it, that the world your parents made was harsh and horrid and their parents were not much better…let’s see how you do.

I favour complete honesty. Without it you lose students very quickly. As soon as there is a foray into race and ethnicity, murder or mayhem, war especially and the inhuman acts that follow, they will inevitably have questions outside your narrative. Most will follow the usual pattern of wondering why. The problem with that is the answer is usually so complex that you will lose them in the telling of it. The horrors of Nazi Germany were not just one man and his racism, it was not just one country and its anger; it was a multi layered foundation of historical anti-Semitism, medium term struggles against colonialism and fear of annihilation in Europe, a mistimed war, a humiliating loss and the spark of a man that set all these stacked timbers ablaze.

The other option is more heart wrenching. To recognise the reasons for the inhumanity, especially in history lessons the students need to buy in to it. They have to see the act as something that has resonance; that has meaning to them. To make the horror real they must connect and to connect you must give them something personal. Relate it to them in a way they understand, get them to see individuals rather than wallow in group-think. The story, the testimony: make the lesson real with the smaller detail; the odds and ends that stick in the mind. The tonnes of plastic on Mumbai rubbish tips, the fate of concentration camp doctors in Nazi Germany, the gory realities of the animal kingdom.  

There are monsters in our classrooms and our students must get to know them. So when the time comes they will act where we and previous generations have failed. Do not shy from showing them the bleak unsettling truth of the past, the present and the possible future to give them a foothold in making a new world.

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